WWDC isn’t just all sessions and learning. For the mostly-remote AgileBits team, it’s also a chance to meet up and spend a week geeking out together. A great number of the AgileBits team made the trip out to San Francisco during the week of June 8th and we had such a grand time that we needed the last couple of weeks to recover!

Many members of our party were dub dub first timers and it was wonderful to introduce them to the fun that is San Francisco during Apple’s big developer event. For us seasoned veterans, the week was a whirlwind of reconnecting with old friends, forging new friendships, and immersing ourselves in the recharging waters of developer geek culture.

For me, there was something different about this WWDC from years previous and I’ve had a hard time putting my finger on it. Truth be told, I don’t know that I’ve had as good a time at WWDC since my first one in 2009. There was something…effortless about the week and everything seemed to fall into place exactly as it was supposed to. One of the things I did this year that I’ve never done before was to make a list of people I really wanted to see and checked them off one by one throughout the week (though even with that list as a guide I only saw about half the folks I wanted to). I think the other thing that contributed to it being such a great week was the sheer size of the AgileBits contingent that made the trip. I work with some pretty awesome people on a daily basis, but we rarely get to see each other in person, so seeing everyone in one place was just aces.

Smile!

On Tuesday night we co-hosted a super exclusive, invitation-only party with our good friends from Smile, the makers of the hyper-useful TextExpander and PDFPen. I’ve been fortunate enough to be on the list for this party for a few years now, and it’s always one of my favorites. The party was a great success with many wonderful conversations, many glasses of wine, and many delicious appetizers.

Aleen @ AltConf

On Wednesday morning we opted out of WWDC labs and sessions for a while to go see our friend and colleague Aleen Simms give a wonderful talk at AltConf across the street from the Moscone Center. Aleen’s talk, “7 Ways to Enrich the Tech Industry”, gave us all an easy to remember bullet list of ways to support women, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community in STEM fields. There’s so much work to be done to bring equality to this awesome field, and we’re very lucky to have people like Aleen keeping us on task. Keep an eye out for the video of this talk, it’s one you shouldn’t miss.

Photos!

I had my camera with me for most of the week and was able to capture some fun images that summed up the trip pretty well for me, from the roses in our hotel lobby, to the early morning (4am!) trip I took out to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The lobby in our hotel had fresh flowers every day.

As is tradition, at least one company sponsored free coffee and doughnuts to those crazy enough to queue up super early for the keynote.

The crowd gathering outside of Moscone for the keynote.

Most mornings during WWDC you are likely to spot some AGers enjoying a nice breakfast at one of our favorite spots.

We brought along some cards this year to promote the 1Password App Extension to other developers.

Sara Teare uses an old NeXT box at the Cartoon Art Museum fundraiser to recreate the 1Password logo.

One of the displays at the Cartoon Art Museum this year included original movie props from Marvel’s Captain America movies.

One of our founders at the Cartoon Art Museum fundraiser.

It’s become a bit of a tradition of mine to see if I can get a terrible picture of Rick Fillion. This was as close as I got this year.

It was wonderful to see my good friend (and former boss) Kevin Hoctor make an appearance at the Smile/Agile party this year.

The man behind iOS Dev Weekly himself was in attendance. If you didn’t do it this year, make sure that next year you take a selfie with him, post it to Twitter and tag it #picswithdave. He loves it.

Our resident head of QA enjoying the party.

Wolf Rentzsch was a welcome surprise this year, I hadn’t seen Wolf since NSConf 2010 in Atlanta, GA.

Mike Ward, the wookie himself.

Sara Teare, enjoying our Smile/Agile party.

Chris Breen and Chuck Joiner engage in conversation during our party.

The results of waking up at 4 AM and driving up to the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m particularly happy with this shot.

All in all, it was a wonderful week of learning, collaboration, and a little bit of socializing. If you didn’t get a chance to talk to the AgileBits team in San Francisco this year, be sure to find us at WWDC 2016—we’d LOVE to chat!